The Westley–MacLean Model
One event. Several accounts. More than one way back.
Trace how advocates, news organisations and audiences encounter the world, select messages and exchange feedback. Learn the notation by following a concrete case.
In this chapter · Open the contents
Read the symbols. Explain the selections.
- Identify X, A, C and B in a consistent analytical setting.
- Distinguish an event, a perception, X′ and X″.
- Draw the interpersonal and mass communication arrangements.
- Classify fBA, fBC and fCA by their direction.
- Evaluate C’s role, feedback and the model’s limits through evidence.
The world supplies events. Communicators select accounts of them.
A university library announces Sunday opening. Its administration highlights expanded access. A student newsroom asks about staffing and entry arrangements. Some students read the report; others have already seen the queue outside. Their questions return to the newsroom and the library.
One development has produced several observations, messages and responses. The Westley–MacLean model maps these relationships among events, advocates, channel roles and audiences. It shows that communication involves selection at more than one point and that feedback can return through different paths.
Bruce H. Westley and Malcolm S. MacLean, Jr. developed the model in work published in 1955 and revised for Journalism Quarterly in 1957. It connects interpersonal communication with the organised selection of material for larger publics.
What makes this model useful?
It gives the environment a visible place. It separates the advocate’s proposal from the channel’s published message. It allows the channel to observe events independently, and it distinguishes audience feedback to a source from audience feedback to a newsroom.
Use it as a map for asking questions. The original authors presented a conceptual framework for research, not a finished theory that predicts every outcome. Drawing an arrow does not establish that a message was understood, that a response reached its destination or that participants came to agree.
Who encounters which events, who selects what to communicate, how does the account change, and where does feedback go? Keep the event, its representation and its consequences distinct.
Foundations: Westley and MacLean (1955, 1957), building on Newcomb (1953). The library example and all contemporary cases below are fictional teaching scenarios.
From Newcomb’s ABX relationship to a wider communication system.
Newcomb’s ABX model links two people, A and B, with an object or issue, X, towards which they orient. A person’s view of an issue is considered alongside the relationship with the other person. Communication can become important when those orientations differ.
Do not turn this into a rule that every disagreement disappears through discussion. The proposed movement towards shared orientation depends on relationships and conditions; actual encounters can preserve or deepen disagreement.
What Westley and MacLean add
- Several possible Xs: the environment offers many events and objects from which people select.
- Unequal access: A, C and B need not encounter the same things directly.
- A channel role, C: organised selection can extend the audience’s access to a wider environment.
- Several feedback paths: responses may reach the advocate, the channel, or both.
| Work | Contribution | Keep in view |
|---|---|---|
| Newcomb · 1953 | An approach to the study of communicative acts develops the interpersonal ABX framework. | A, B and X form a relationship of orientations, not simply a delivery chain. |
| Westley and MacLean · 1955 | An earlier version of A conceptual model for communications research appears in Audiovisual Communication Review. | The model’s development predates the familiar 1957 publication. |
| Westley and MacLean · 1957 | The revised model appears in Journalism Quarterly, 34(1), 31–38. | This is the version commonly taught in mass communication courses. |
A role is not a permanent identity
The letters identify roles in the relationship being studied. An organisation can act as an advocate in one setting and an audience in another. Within a newsroom, a reporter submitting an account and an editor selecting material may also occupy different analytical roles.
Set the boundary of your example first. Otherwise, “source”, “reporter”, “channel” and “audience” can slide between meanings while the diagram appears unchanged.
Read the symbols as relationships, not as decoration.
| Symbol | Meaning | Library example |
|---|---|---|
| X1 … Xn | Events or objects in the environment: things about which communication can occur. | Sunday opening, a staffing change, a queue and an entry arrangement. |
| A | The advocate role: an individual or organisation selecting and communicating purposively. | The library administration proposes an account of its opening arrangements. |
| C | The channel or gatekeeping role: selection and communication organised for an audience. | The student newsroom selects, checks and publishes material. |
| B | The audience or behavioural-system role: a person or group using information about its environment. | Students who encounter and interpret the report. |
| X′ · X prime | The selected message A sends towards B, through C in the full mass communication arrangement. | The administration’s proposed announcement. |
| X″ · X double prime | The message C selects and transmits to B in the full arrangement. | The newsroom’s published account. |
| fBA | Feedback from B to A. | A student asks the library administration to clarify entry arrangements. |
| fBC | Feedback from B to C. | A student sends the newsroom a correction or question. |
| fCA | Feedback from C to A. | The newsroom asks the administration for evidence or clarification. |
Perception is another distinction
You may encounter labels such as X1A, X1B or X3C in diagrams and teaching texts. These identify an object as perceived or selected within a particular participant’s field. They do not name an extra advocate or another event.
A sees the library opening as improved provision. A student waiting outside may notice a delay. C may gather an observation that A did not supply. The issue is not that everyone lives in a different physical world, but that access, attention and interpretation can differ.
X is not X′. The event is distinct from the message. X′ is not X″. The advocate’s proposal and the channel’s published selection may differ. Read the feedback subscripts in the direction shown: fBC means B → C in this chapter.
The prime marks identify selected message forms. They are not powers, truth scores or a scale of message quality. A changed message may be clearer, less complete, better supported or more misleading; the symbols alone do not decide.
A selects a message. B can compare and respond.
Begin with the smaller arrangement before adding a newsroom. A selects from the environment and communicates X′ to B. B may also encounter part of that environment directly and return feedback to A.
Many objects and events are available for selective attention.
Selects an account of relevant events to communicate.
Receives the account and may compare it with direct experience.
A question, response or other information about B can return to A.
Selection begins before the message is written
A cannot include every object, detail and possible interpretation. Interests, access and purpose help shape the account. B also selects what to attend to and how to interpret it.
In the library example, an administrator tells a student about Sunday opening. The student has seen the queue and asks how entry will work. The message and the direct observation are different sources of orientation. The question returns information to A about what remains unclear to B.
Feedback does not settle the outcome
A response can reveal a misunderstanding, ask for detail, express disagreement or indicate a changed situation. It may lead A to revise the next message. But A may ignore it, misunderstand it or lack the resources to act.
Distinguish a feedback opportunity, an actual response, its reception and any subsequent adjustment. These are separate things to observe.
C adds a selection process—and can extend B’s environment.
In the full arrangement, the advocate communicates X′ to C. The channel selects a message X″ for B. C can draw on the advocate’s material, other advocates and its own observations.
A, C and B can have different access to events. C may obtain material beyond A’s proposal.
Proposes a message about events or issues.
Selects, checks, combines and communicates material for B.
Selects and interprets the published account.
Three return paths · Read the named direction
Audience to advocate.
Audience to channel.
Channel to advocate.
C is more than a wire
The channel role includes judgments about access, relevance, verification, form, prominence and timing. In a news setting, it can include deciding which source to approach, which claims need evidence and which details belong in the published account.
Do not equate C only with a technical device. The website or transmitter may carry the message; the channel role in the model concerns the selection and encoding performed for an audience. Define whether your study treats an editor, a newsroom or a larger organisation as C.
A is not required for every piece of news
C can observe an event and report it without first receiving an advocacy message. A reporter may notice a queue, check the circumstances and publish an account. In that route, X reaches B through C without an A supplying the initiating message.
This matters because not everything that becomes news began as someone’s deliberate attempt to communicate with the public.
A mass communication setting may include many advocates, channel organisations and audiences. B can encounter accounts from several Cs. The diagram names the roles needed to examine a relationship; it is not a census of participants.
“Non-purposive” does not mean that real editors have no motives.
In the model’s distinction, A communicates purposively: A seeks to shape B’s orientation towards an X. C is assigned a non-purposive or gatekeeping role, selecting information in relation to B’s needs rather than advancing an advocacy purpose of its own.
The term can mislead if read too literally. C still selects and organises material. “Non-purposive” does not mean random, unconscious or devoid of all practical aims. It distinguishes the prescribed channel role from the advocacy role.
Prescription and performance are different
The original authors explicitly distinguish role prescriptions from actual role behaviour. They allow that a reporter acting as a gatekeeper may also behave as an advocate and treat that discrepancy as an empirical question.
A fair evaluation therefore asks whether a channel’s conduct fits its proposed role, and what explains departures. It should not treat the model as proof that real journalism is free from influence.
The role in the model
C extends B’s access to relevant information and selects material with reference to audience needs.
The empirical question
How do professional routines, resources, ownership, source relationships and wider pressures shape C’s actual choices?
The library newsroom might verify the administration’s claim and add students’ experiences. It might also favour a familiar source, miss an access problem or follow an organisational preference. Identify the behaviour and evidence rather than assigning neutrality or bias from the letter C.
The role-prescription distinction is made in Westley and MacLean (1957). Shoemaker and Vos (2009) and Shoemaker and Reese (2014) provide later frameworks for examining gatekeeping and influences on media content.
Feedback has a destination. Its meaning still needs interpretation.
| Path | Direction and example | What it may reveal |
|---|---|---|
| fBA | B → A: a student asks the library administration about an unclear entry arrangement. | The advocate receives information about an audience concern or response. |
| fBC | B → C: a reader sends the newsroom a correction or answers its audience survey. | The channel learns something about reception, needs or possible errors. |
| fCA | C → A: the newsroom asks the administration for evidence or explains why a claim cannot yet be published. | The advocate learns how the channel has received or evaluated its proposal. |
Some feedback is deliberate; some is inferred
A letter or direct question intentionally communicates back. Other signals may become feedback through observation or research even when the person did not intend to send a message. Sales, attendance or audience-use patterns can be interpreted in this way.
Such signals are often ambiguous. A person can attend an event for several reasons. A view count may show access without comprehension. A complaint may come from a highly engaged minority. Specify what was measured and what inference is justified.
Delayed feedback is not absent feedback
The classic discussion contrasts the immediate opportunities of face-to-face exchange with the reduced or delayed feedback typical of mass communication. A newsroom can receive letters, survey results or later behavioural data without having the continuous response available in a conversation.
Digital responses can arrive quickly, but speed does not make them representative or informative. Ask who can respond, which responses reach C or A, and how they are interpreted.
Who produced the signal? Who received it? What did it indicate? What changed afterwards? A return arrow should prompt these questions rather than answer them.
Trace how an event becomes a published account.
The primes make a comparison possible. Collect the advocate’s proposal and the channel’s output, then examine what changed. Added context, verification, compression, reframing and omission are different processes.
A fictional library begins Sunday opening. Students also encounter queues and questions about entry.
“Sunday opening expands access to the library.”
“Library opens on Sundays; students seek clearer entry arrangements.”
A changed account is not automatically a distorted account
C may correct an error, add an overlooked experience, remove an unsupported claim or explain unfamiliar terms. It may also omit important context or adopt a misleading emphasis. Compare the versions with evidence about X before judging the change.
Gatekeeping asks what receives access and how material is shaped. Framing asks how the resulting account defines problems, causes and possible responses. These questions connect, but they are not interchangeable.
Applying the model to digital communication
Separate editorial selection from hosting, recommendation, moderation and audience sharing. These may be performed by different actors and systems. The original C role can help identify a selection problem; treating every digital function as an identical C would hide important differences.
A single participant can also change roles. A student who first reads as B may later submit an account as A. A newsroom may receive platform notices as an audience while selecting material for its readers in another relationship. Draw each relationship separately when necessary.
Does a comment section complete the feedback loop?
It creates a possible route for B → C. To establish a functioning loop, examine whether relevant people can comment, whether the message reaches the newsroom, how it is interpreted and whether it informs a later decision.
A visible response box is not evidence of equal voice or an editorial adjustment.
For further study, compare News Framing and the Frankfurt School to examine message organisation and wider relations of culture and power.
Map the roles. Then test the interpretation.
Select a case, sketch the roles and then open the analysis. All cases are invented. Keep the analytical boundary explicit before assigning letters.
Use Tab to reach the native radio group and arrow keys to change cases. Answers and selections are not submitted or saved.
Turn the diagram into questions that evidence can answer.
The model’s strength lies in directing attention to selection, access and feedback. A study becomes stronger when each arrow is linked with a concrete process and each role with a defined participant or organisation.
- Set the boundary and define X.
Choose an issue, period and setting. Identify relevant events independently of the published account where possible. State who performs A, C and B in this relationship.
- Compare the message forms.
Gather A’s proposal, C’s published selection and any available revisions. Code additions, omissions, factual changes, source diversity, emphasis and prominence. Do not infer intentions from a changed headline alone.
- Investigate C’s choices.
Use available documents, interviews and observation to examine access, verification, time, resources, audience assumptions and organisational pressures. Content differences show a pattern; decision evidence can help explain it.
- Trace the feedback paths.
Identify the origin, destination, timing and interpretation of each response. Examine which audience groups are represented and whose responses are absent. Use consent and anonymise private exchanges.
- Separate reception from outcome.
Ask whether B encountered and understood the account, then examine any claimed change in judgment or action. Feedback signals and message circulation do not automatically establish causal effects.
A small self-learning investigation
Choose a public announcement and one media account of the same issue. Identify the likely A and C, list the Xs each account emphasises, and compare X′ with X″. Look for a public correction or response. If a role or feedback path cannot be established, mark it as unknown rather than inventing it.
What the model contributes—and what needs further explanation
| Issue | Contribution | Limit / research question |
|---|---|---|
| Environmental access | Connects messages with a world of events and selective perceptions. | Who has access to reliable evidence, and whose experience is excluded? |
| Gatekeeping | Separates the advocate’s proposal from the channel’s selection. | Which routines, interests and resources explain actual choices? |
| Feedback | Distinguishes B → A, B → C and C → A. | Which responses are received, interpreted and acted upon? |
| Audience needs | Treats B as selecting and using information about its environment. | Can audience needs be inferred from commercial success or a vocal minority? |
| Role prescription | Provides a distinction between advocacy and channel roles. | How do actual role behaviours depart from that prescription? |
| Shared orientation | Connects interpersonal relations with representations of X. | Does communication clarify differences, create agreement or intensify conflict? |
| Scope | Organises several communication relationships in one map. | Power, institutions, meaning and effects require additional concepts and evidence. |
Do not criticise the model for claiming that every real editor is impartial: the original authors acknowledge a gap between prescribed and actual roles. A stronger critique asks whether the framework gives enough explanation of power, conflict and unequal access to account for that gap.
“The published account adds independently gathered observations” is a descriptive finding. “Commercial pressure caused the omission” is an explanatory claim requiring additional evidence. Keep the two levels distinct.
Use the lecture to practise the notation.
Watch Dr. USP’s lecture on Westley and MacLean’s conceptual model, then reconstruct the relationships without looking at the figures. Return to the case workshop to check the notation against concrete examples.
| Start | Focus | Pause and ask |
|---|---|---|
| 00:00 | Introduction and the 1957 publication. | What does a conceptual model help organise? |
| 01:07 | Newcomb’s ABX relationship and feedback. | Why can orientations towards X differ? |
| 02:03 | Several Xs, perceptions and selected messages. | How is X different from X′? |
| 02:58 | The channel / gatekeeping role enters the model. | What does C add beyond carrying A’s message? |
| 04:42 | Advocate, channel and audience roles. | Which participant performs each role in my example? |
| 05:36 | Message forms and the three feedback paths. | Can I label X′, X″, fBA, fBC and fCA correctly? |
| 06:45 | Feedback, assumptions and criticism. | Which claims concern a role prescription and which concern actual behaviour? |
| 08:26 | Questions for communication research. | Which arrow could I investigate with available evidence? |
Entry points are approximate guides derived from the supplied transcript, not official video chapters. Timestamp links may open in YouTube.
Name it. Draw it. Investigate it.
First pass: name the roles and messages. Second pass: draw the forward flow and three feedback paths. Third pass: choose a case and identify one relationship that remains unproved.
Get the arrows right. Then examine what they explain.
Choose and justify your answer before opening the explanation. These checks are for self-study; answers are not collected or automatically scored.
1. What does X primarily represent?
- An event or object in the environment
- The published headline alone
- The audience’s response
- A technical error
Reveal answer 1
Answer: A. X refers to objects or events about which communication occurs. Messages are selected representations, not the event itself.
2. In the full arrangement, which notation identifies A’s proposal to C and C’s message to B?
- X″ for both messages
- X′ for A → C; X″ for C → B
- X for the first message; fBC for the second
- The prime marks identify the number of readers
Reveal answer 2
Answer: B. The primes distinguish the selected message forms. They do not measure quality, truth or audience size.
3. Which role does C perform?
- Every response made by an audience
- Only the advocate’s persuasive purpose
- Selection and communication for an audience through a channel / gatekeeping role
- The environmental event itself
Reveal answer 3
Answer: C. C selects and encodes material for B. A newsroom is one possible instance; a technical device alone does not explain that role.
4. A reader sends a correction to the newsroom. With the newsroom as C, which path is this?
- fCA
- fAB
- fBA
- fBC
Reveal answer 4
Answer: D. B → C is fBC. Classify the path by the roles of the origin and destination.
5. The newsroom asks the advocate to support a claim. Which path is this?
- fCA
- fBC
- fBA
- X → B
Reveal answer 5
Answer: A. C → A is fCA. The advocate’s later reply can become part of a subsequent message exchange.
6. Does every report require an advocate’s initiating message?
- Yes; A must be invented whenever a report exists
- No; C can observe X and communicate about it directly to B
- Yes; C cannot encounter events independently
- No; therefore C never uses sources
Reveal answer 6
Answer: B. The model allows C’s independent access to the environment, including communication without an initiating A.
7. What is the careful interpretation of C as “non-purposive”?
- C has no practical aims of any kind
- Real editors cannot have interests
- It is a prescribed distinction from advocacy; actual behaviour remains an empirical question
- Selection occurs randomly
Reveal answer 7
Answer: C. The original authors distinguish role prescriptions from actual role behaviour. The term does not establish real-world neutrality.
8. A published account differs from the advocate’s proposal. What follows immediately?
- The account is necessarily false
- The advocate is necessarily dishonest
- The model has failed
- Selection or transformation has occurred; its quality and cause require investigation
Reveal answer 8
Answer: D. C may add evidence, clarify, compress, omit or mislead. Compare the versions and relevant evidence before judging the change.
9. Why is a comment count an incomplete measure of feedback?
- It does not by itself reveal representation, interpretation or subsequent adjustment
- It proves that nobody read the account
- It shows that feedback is absent
- It establishes agreement among all readers
Reveal answer 9
Answer: A. The count is one signal. Who responded, who was heard and what changed are additional questions.
10. Which publication statement is accurate?
- The model first appeared only after 1960
- A 1955 version preceded the revised 1957 Journalism Quarterly article
- Newcomb wrote the 1957 Westley–MacLean paper
- The 1957 paper proved every media effect
Reveal answer 10
Answer: B. The earlier work and later revision should be distinguished. The model supplies a conceptual research framework, not a complete explanation of every outcome.
Applied assignment · 400–500 words
Choose a public issue with an identifiable advocate’s statement and a media account. Define X, A, C and B. Compare X′ with X″, identify possible independent observations, and classify any available feedback. Explain one selection decision and the evidence needed to investigate it. End with a limitation or an unknown relationship.
| Criterion | Points | Check |
|---|---|---|
| Defined roles and boundary | 2 | Can the reader identify X, A, C and B in one consistent relationship? |
| Correct notation | 2 | Are X′, X″ and the three feedback paths distinguished? |
| Message comparison | 3 | Does the answer identify concrete additions, omissions, changes or independent evidence? |
| Explanation and alternatives | 2 | Does it separate description from a claim about why selection occurred? |
| Reasoned limitation | 1 | Does it state what remains unknown or unmeasured? |
Readiness check
The checkboxes are a temporary study aid. They do not save course progress.
Keep the notation consistent. Keep the inquiry grounded.
Key terms
- Object of orientation
- An event, issue or object towards which a participant directs attention, represented by X.
- Advocate role · A
- A person or social system communicating purposively about an X.
- Channel role · C
- Selection and transmission of material for B; distinct analytically from the advocacy role.
- Audience role · B
- A person or group selecting and using communication about its environment.
- Selected message · X′
- A’s representation of selected material, directed to C in the full arrangement.
- Published selection · X″
- The message C transmits to B, potentially combining A’s proposal and independent material.
- Gatekeeping
- Decisions that shape access, selection and the form of communication.
- Feedback
- Information returning to a participant about reception or response; its meaning and consequences require interpretation.
- Role prescription
- What a role is expected to do within the conceptual framework.
- Role behaviour
- What a participant actually does in a particular setting.
- Shared orientation
- A relationship of participants’ views towards an object; agreement is not guaranteed by a diagram.
- Encoding
- Transforming selected observations or ideas into a transmissible symbolic form.
Read the model, then examine the decisions.
Begin with the lecture and the 1957 paper. Use the earlier work and Newcomb for context, then connect the diagram with gatekeeping, media sociology and framing. Some publisher full texts may require institutional access.
- Pandey, U. S. (Dr. USP). Westley and MacLean’s Conceptual Model of Communication [Video]. YouTube.
Open source / publication record ↗
Why read it? The lecture supplied for this chapter. Use the viewing guide and case exercises above. - Westley, B. H., & MacLean, M. S., Jr. (1957). A conceptual model for communications research. Journalism Quarterly, 34(1), 31–38.
Open source / publication record ↗
Why read it? The principal model discussed here. Read its notation and its distinction between prescribed and actual roles. - Westley, B. H., & MacLean, M. S., Jr. (1955). A conceptual model for communications research. Audiovisual Communication Review, 3, 3–12.
Open source / publication record ↗
Why read it? The earlier version. The historical issue year is 1955; a later online date does not change it. - Newcomb, T. M. (1953). An approach to the study of communicative acts. Psychological Review, 60(6), 393–404.
Open source / publication record ↗
Why read it? For the interpersonal ABX framework on which Westley and MacLean build. - White, D. M. (1950). The “gate keeper”: A case study in the selection of news. Journalism Quarterly, 27(4), 383–390.
Open source / publication record ↗
Why read it? An early empirical study of news selection. Use it to connect the role of C with observable decisions. - Shoemaker, P. J., & Vos, T. P. (2009). Gatekeeping theory. Routledge.
Open source / publication record ↗
Why read it? A later framework for examining gatekeeping across decisions, institutions and audiences. - Shoemaker, P. J., & Reese, S. D. (2014). Mediating the message in the 21st century: A media sociology perspective (3rd ed.). Routledge.
Open source / publication record ↗
Why read it? For influences on media content beyond the simplified roles in a communication diagram. - Entman, R. M. (1993). Framing: Toward clarification of a fractured paradigm. Journal of Communication, 43(4), 51–58.
Open source / publication record ↗
Why read it? Compare the selection of material with the organisation of meaning within the published account.